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The GIS Guide to Public Domain Data Explains Sources and Quality of Spatial Data

Redlands, CaliforniaThe GIS Guide to Public Domain Data, published by Esri Press, provides GIS users with detailed information about the sources and quality of spatial data available in the public domain and the policies that govern its use.

This guide covers practical issues such as copyrights, cloud computing, online data portals, volunteered geographic information, and international data. It provides GIS practitioners and instructors with the essential skills to find, acquire, format, and analyze public domain spatial data. Supplementary exercises are available online to help put the concepts into practice.

"This book fills a very big gap in the literature of GIS and brings together for the first time discussions of issues users of public domain data are likely to confront," says Michael F. Goodchild, professor of geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and director of UCSB's Center for Spatial Studies. "It will prove useful to GIS practitioners in any area of GIS application, including students anxious to learn the skills needed to become GIS practitioners and data producers who want their data to be as useful as possible."

Written by Joseph J. Kerski and Jill Clark, the guide provides a critical evaluation of the various public domain data portals available and the merits of their data.